I think Myrmecos needs to be more specific on his divergence estimates: timetree of life produces estimates for different gene sets, weighted and simple averages, and even a Time Tree Expert number for some. For example, if I put up a posting on how great a blog Myrmecos is and posted a picture of a two-spotted spider mite for Alex I could generate a TFI of 36.8-146.4, just using the Weighted and Simple averages for Pan paniscus-Homo sapiens and Tetranychus urticae. I think this is lacking in precision.

“If I were to run a story about Sarah Palin, but accidentally illustrate it with a photo of a bonobo, that would be a taxonomy fail of magnitude 1.”

The consensus seems to be that bonobos, while they are native to Asia, are in fact part of a major radiation of the Magnipedidae that took place about 1 mya in Alaska, which incidentally also gave rise to the yeti, Bigfoot, and John McCain (Johannia maccainii).

But at least she wouldn’t be identified as H. sapiens… that would warrant at least a 5 on the TFI.

Bwah ha ha ha! Whether it’s real or not, this poster is hilarious. Let’s face it: at least one person out there can’t tell the difference between a possum and a cat. Imaging this person makes the poster even better.

Though some divergence could apply to the algorithm and the age calculations, this is an excellent point. Ignorance about the nature of Systematics has resulted in ridiculous mistakes of many kinds in scientific papers, applied entomology, and in general printed matter on Biology. An index like this could call the attention of those that naïvely think that taxonomy is a question of “applying names to things” (they could not move much in theory along the last 150 years), not the construction of an extremely complex system with biological entities at different level reflecting phylogenetic relationships, characters of groups on those levels, and names–that later on become a general reference system. It’s not personal. It’s just the matter of ignorance on the relevance of Systematics.